Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea

Hayao Miyazaki’s newest movie “Gake no Ue no Ponyo” I’m happy to say, has taken its roots back to the style of Totoro.

Ponyo is about a spirited little fish who lives in the sea. She runs away from home one day and meets a little boy on the shore by the name of Sosuke. He takes an instant liking to Ponyo and scoops her into a bucket to take home. Meanwhile Ponyo’s father who is actually human, is upset about his daughter’s running away and uses his powers to control the sea in order to track her down. Sosuke vows to protect Ponyo forever, but the fact that she is now wishing to become human is causing the world to become unbalanced.

As always, the worlds put forth by Hayao Miyazaki are always colorful and imaginative. This movie is no exception. While it has a semi-villain, it still ends with “Everyone lives happily ever after, even the grumpy guys” as most Ghibli movies do. This isn’t a bad thing though, before I left for NY I gave my little cousin the movie My Neighbor Totoro which is also a Miyazaki work, and she loved it. Apparently while I was gone, it had turned into her favorite movie. This is what she said to my grandmother;

“Grandma who is the bad guy?”

“Not every movie has a bad guy you know, this is one of those kinds”

“Ooh… I like it even more then!”

While Ponyo caters to little kids, it’s also enjoyable for the older crowd. I liked it a lot more than I expected to, even though I’m not sure why. It was kind of the same with Totoro, it was just cute, sweet, and pretty to watch. Miyazaki had his own hand in this production, working on how to draw the waves and water which he felt was a key part of the film. They made over 170,000 separate images which broke the record over any previous Ghibli film, and Sosuke was based on Miyazaki’s son Goro when he was about 5 years old. This movie is a simple joy to watch, a good one to watch when you’re having a bad day, even a good day, any kind of day.